New Magazine Lights the Way

Can you judge a lit mag by its cover? On Lumina’s cover, a glossy and colorful futurist scene of photographic realism, a superhero has dropped a grocery bag and broken eggs—perennial symbol of lost virginity—have fallen from their carton. A hot rod convertible nearby sports a menacing machine gun belt (if I know my weapons, and I don’t).

Inside, I predict will be surreal stories and poetry of disappointment, ineptitude, and violence. When I discover that the cover art (by Andreas Englund) is entitled, “Shopping,” I add one more prediction: the work will be understated.

The back cover says George Saunders judged their fiction contest. I love his work ferociously, so I’m ready to buy.

But now for the inside: Exhibit A, “MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY,” by Elenei Sikelianos comes through with the surreal (at least I hope so): “smothering small raccoons.” This succinct piece offered a deep turn, “It looked so evil when I killed it, but once it was dead I saw it was no bigger than my hand.” A situation with many metaphorical possibilities.

I tend to dread long poems unless they rhyme, but Nathaniel McKay’s “Song of the Andoumboulou” did not tire me out. On the contrary, it held many surprising delights; each line opened a new door in an odd, yet not arbitrary-seeming structure that is hard to recreate here. I’ll give just a hint. One line ends “what of it,” a statement in itself, but carries on to “was left” in the next line. This kind of little surprise happened continually, each addition gathering meaning and resonance. Both parts of the poem held satisfying visions and discoveries, “P as in leapt.” A small thing but fresh.

An interview of David Shields by Brittany Baker includes memorable thoughts: “A book should either allow us to escape existence or teach us to endure it.” Amen.

I liked all the art work, liked it as much as any I’ve seen in any lit journal. Each image felt rich and heavy with significance rather than scribbled or pretentious.

As befits a journal from one of the Seven Sisters with its expected candlepower, one could improve one’s vocabulary or stump one’s online dictionary with this issue: “licts” and “ipseity.”

Matthew Clark Davison’s “Brothers,” is a story with a sucker punch that I predict high school literati will love.

It seems to be a recent trend to write three or four poems and give them all the same title. Case in point, “Pogrom I, II, III and VI” (I wondered if the VI should be IV. Or were IV and V left out because they weren’t quite up to the mark?) Besides that quibble, I found them fine poems that successfully walked the line between impressive gibberish and evocation of something meaningful.

Kelle Groom’s “Lake” offered little wonders of information: the present-day appearance of the Ponderosa Ranch from Bonanza days; Las Vegas as the suicide capital of the world; the original native name of “Tahoe” intertwined with sad and interesting details of a Djerassi residency, fossils, specific suicides. This most impressive piece dug deep.

An understated theme of death wove through many of these stories including Benjamin Schaefer’s memorable “Canning.”

I enjoyed reading Saunders’ short essay introducing his prize-winning choices; surprisingly, I didn’t entirely share his taste though all his selections were undeniably vivid. One can’t talk about each item, but let me give you a little treasure hunt: “…every word from her mouth fell straight down, hit the table, and died.” “I still cannot listen to someone eating a cracker but I have developed coping mechanisms…” “…a neighborhood of people who illegally saved parking spots in front of their apartment buildings by putting up fake construction notices…” and “…hugged and kissed me three times on each cheek, gripping the sides of my face as if popping a balloon.” Go find the works those charming sentences appeared in! The hunt will be worth it.

Let me also say that though I won’t be cutting out pages from it and sewing them to the inside of my trench coat for the next Flash Fiction Forum in San Jose (as I did with a different journal), this issue of Lumina is a keeper.